Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.

Bataan and Corregidor – and Beacon Hill

NOTE: This piece was originally published in Pacific Publishing’s September 6 issue of its neighborhood papers in Seattle. It is reprinted here to provide a link for reference by members of the Filipino American Association of Bataan and Corregidor Survivors in their efforts to work with Seattle Parks & Recreation to create a memorial at Dr. José Rizal Park.

August 28 was a bright afternoon we expected.

Across Seattle, any who could found reason to celebrate outside, many flocked to local events.

On Beacon Hill, the third and final Beacon Rocks! event of the season cranked out local music. Mayor Mike McGinn made an appearance to rededicate what had been the Lander Festival Street. Behind the Sound Transit light rail station, the street has been reconfigured to allow for public events. Last year, the City of Seattle announced the block-long path of concrete and decorative bricks would be renamed for Roberto Maestas to honor the founder of El Centro de la Raza.

As neighbors and dignitaries gathered for the ceremony, a mile away another event was taking place. The Filipino American Association of Bataan and Corregidor Survivors held its annual picnic at Dr. José Rizal Park. As I’m the forest steward for the park, I dropped by to say hello. I learned the City of Seattle has refused to allow them to create a memorial in a park named for the Filipino national hero.

The association wants to honor Filipino American veterans, especially those who survived the Bataan Death March and the Battle of Corregidor. The City of Seattle should let this memorial stand.

According to a Parks & Recreation spokesperson, the City of Seattle has had a policy for decades that does not allow memorials in city parks. While Seattle now has an Edgar Martinez Way and a Dave Niehaus Way, the same honor is not accorded in our parks. We have institutions funded by public money that commemorate rich donors, like Seattle Opera’s McCaw Hall and Seattle Rep’s Bagley Wright Theater. The Seattle Art Museum has numerous wealthy donors memorialized, including auditoriums named for the Nordstrom, Pletscheff, and Stimson families. At the Olympic Sculpture Park sits the PacCar Pavilion.

Why can’t Seattle remember ordinary people who found themselves in extraordinary times, who gave service beyond riches, sports, or politics?

There are some memorials in parks. In Woodland Park, north of Fremont, is a statue of a doughboy of World War I. It stood before the current policy was made. The wall listing Seattle’s dead in World War II once stood on public property along 5th Avenue. The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the cusp of the Central District and the South End is named for one of historical significance for all, as is Dr. José Rizal Park. There is no other place in Seattle appropriate for these veterans of Bataan and Corregidor.

Why should Bataan and Corregidor count in our 21st Century memory?

Following the surrender of American and Filipino forces on the Bataan Peninsula on April 9, 1942, five months after the assault on the Philippines began on Dec. 8, 1941, the Japanese Imperial Army forced 78,000 U.S. and Philippine troops on a 60-mile march to a prisoner of war camp. En route, 4,000 Americans and 15,000 Filipinos were murdered by their captors. A group of 450 Filipino officers and noncoms were massacred before the march. Some prisoners escaped into the surrounding jungle. Others died when herded into railcars for a 10-mile transit. Survivors were forced to march to a place called Camp O’Donnell. Along the way, Filipino civilians were killed indiscriminately. The Bataan Death March would be considered a major war crime. Only 54,000 prisoners reached the POW camp. Within six months, another 25,000 Filipinos would die there. American troops healthy enough to work were shipped off as slave labor to Manchuria and Japan. The rest were relocated, many massacred.

On May 6, the garrison at Corregidor – an island fortress in Manila Harbor, “the Gibraltar of the East” – was overrun by 75,000 Japanese troops. Another 11,000 Filipinos and Americans were captured. They were marched away, too.

Resistance in the Philippines would be a candle held in the darkest hours after Pearl Harbor. By the time the United States invaded Luzon, in late 1944, when General Douglas MacArthur returned, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos had died during the fascist occupation. Among the troops who helped Filipinos fight for their national and cultural survival was John Bernard Thompson, Jr., my dad. Among those freed from Japanese prisons were a neighbor’s grandfather, grandmother, uncle, and father.

The logic behind the city’s refusal seems to be, if one group gets a memorial, what happens when another asks? Jefferson Park memorializes Thomas Jefferson. Lincoln Park memorializes Abraham Lincoln. Seward Park memorializes William Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State. The names of our parks are meant to keep history alive.

The Association of Bataan and Corregidor Survivors was founded in 1959 by 157 Filipino veterans from Washington towns. Most served with the U.S. Army. Many were denied veteran’s benefits through a quirk in immigration laws. One among those 157 was Jose Calugas, the only Filipino World War II vet honored by the United States with the Congressional Medal of Honor.

His citation reads, “The action for which the award was made took place near Culis, Bataan Province, Philippine Islands, on 16 January 1942. A battery gun position was bombed and shelled by the enemy until 1 gun was put out of commission and all the cannoneers were killed or wounded. Sgt. Calugas, a mess sergeant of another battery, voluntarily and without orders ran 1,000 yards across the shell-swept area to the gun position. There he organized a volunteer squad which placed the gun back in commission and fired effectively against the enemy, although the position remained under constant and heavy Japanese artillery fire.”

Sergeant Calugas moved to Tacoma after the war. He became an American citizen and raised a family.

Today, of those 157, only four live. Two attended the event at Dr. José Rizal Park, both 93 years old, men of humility who may not want to see their names in print when so many comrades have passed. What matters is that memorial.

Would it set a precedent? Yes, one that would encourage greater participation in our parks at a time when the city’s budget for maintenance is crashing.

The association recast its proposal; a decision may come later this fall. With so many memorials in Seattle, to people great and small, why deny this one?

These veterans deserve to be remembered how they wish to be remembered.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.